Because faith in the magical and supernatural has no basis in empirical reality it becomes faith in faith itself. It is a faith referred to as "blind" faith. Other options include faith in the human ability to comprehend reality, faith in human values, faith in human rights, faith in human knowledge and faith in the people. In other words, there is the option to have faith in Life itself.
No matter what we choose to have faith in, however, it all comes down to faith in the human mind, faith in the human ability to distinguish rubies from rot and diamonds from dung, especially in the realm of theology and human belief. It cannot be denied. The human mind is integral to everything we know about God. Everything we know about God comes from that one source.
Most of the current confusion in the western world regarding God is the direct the result of the members of the western democracies not comprehending the theological ground upon which the Declaration was written and upon which Democracy was born in America. This is the theological ground upon which men like Jefferson and Franklin and Madison and Paine and Priestly stood with their backs to the gods.
By and large, these men were scientists who believed in God (can you believe that?). They subscribed to Deism (i.e., Godism), the dialectic synthesis of atheism and theism. It translated into a belief system in which God transcended organized religion and transcended each of us. God was to be found in all of us which required that the Christ be more human than not.
In truth, if you espouse theism and believe in the Abrahamic supernatural God, you would be in error. In truth, If you espouse atheism and believe in no God at all, you would be in error. It all comes down to how and why you define God, does it not? Everything in life is firstly a matter of definition. That is where science and natural philosophy begin, as they did in ancient Greece.
America's founding fathers were Hellenic Deists who believed in God without question and without religion. They believed in nascent Christian human rights without question and without religion. In contrast to the Roman church, they believed that everyone has their own path to God. They believed that light was shed on that path by honoring human rights in public.
In other words, America's fathers saw no relationships whatsoever between Old Testament Roman religion and New Testament Christianity. They saw no relationships between absolute law and vengeance and forgiveness and compassion. Jefferson even edited the New Testament to remove every shred of supernaturalism, no ascension, no resurrection. Jefferson did not do away with God or the Christ, he merely made them human in origin (which would have to be the truth, now, wouldn't it?).
In Jefferson's eyes, if there even was such a thing as "a chosen race," he urged that it would have to be "farmers," independent of nationality or ethnic background. In Jefferson;s mind, God's chosen race remained entirely human and close to the earth. Any human God, of course, would know nothing of race and nothing of gender. Any human god would be human, with no interest at all in being anything less.
In a 1791 Cabinet Opinion, Jefferson placed God in the "head and heart" of every person and he placed the "highest authority" in the "will of the people, substantially declared". Our Deist fathers saw plenty of room for God in the world, a human God without supernatural influence, a human God who can be reached by honoring nascent Christian human rights.
Out Deist fathers saw no role at all for Roman religion in Christianity or in Democracy. The Old Testament literature was, after all, pre-Christian and its teachings were largely rejected by the Christ (for which he was executed in public). They saw the nascent Christian message as having been perverted beyond recognition by imperial Rome.
Our founding fathers conducted their thought within the deductive/mechanistic frameworks established by Isaac Newton. They proceeded to define the groundwork of "modern" natural philosophy, extending natural philosophy into the realm of theology in order to define the nature of a national democracy.
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Dr. Gerry Lower lives in Bell Center, Wisconsin. His website is at
www.jeffersonseyes.com -------------------
A l’heure où les discours et les mesures sécuritaires et judiciaires se durcissent dans nombreux pays européens, où l’on sait les atteintes aux droits les plus élémentaires et aux principes fondamentaux des simples citoyens, quels traitements sont réservés à ceux qui tiennent les pouvoirs politiques, financiers, économiques entre leurs mains? Une conférence-débat organisée dans le cadre du cycle La démocratie en danger par Les Amis de Beppe Grillo à Paris et le NewropMag.
Le 22 juillet dernier, Franck Biancheri, Directeur des études de 
